Sam Turned Fragile
Title: Sam Turned Fragile
Summary: The FBI wants the boys. The FBI knows one of them's a six-foot-five asthmatic. And the FBI knows they don't like to be separated.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 2, to be safe. Language.This takes place sometime after Nightshifter.
Wordcount: 5,686
Author's Note: Sammyverse, yaaaay. Title is from "Time Turned Fragile" by Motion City Soundtrack, one of my favorite songs ever. The internet canNOT agree on whether it's Henrickson or Henricksen--I went with the latter because superwiki does.
---
“You just hold on, okay?”
Sam's gray and rigid in the passenger seat, his back arched and his head tipped back. He barely fucking moves when he nods.
“Shit. Shit. I should have brought you in two fucking days ago.” He's not sick, it's just this fucking attack that isn't letting him the hell go, and ordinarily, yeah, Dean would have hauled his ass in two days ago when the kid stopped having enough oxygen to sleep, but they both know why they can't just run to fucking hospital whenever Sam's lungs bitch out anymore, they both know it and they're sure as fuck not going to talk about it now because his kid's had two EpiPens in the past half hour and apparently still thinks it's time to fucking die everywhere so Dean's not seeing a lot of other fucking options here, okay?
Sam makes his first noise in a while, moves a little air.
“Good.” Dean grips Sam's knee and drives the fuck faster. “Hold on.”
Sam digs his nails into Dean's wrist.
“I know,” Dean says. “I'm right here.”
**
It's just past 2 AM when Henricksen gets the call. He's still awake, eating leftover Chinese, flipping through the case file of an axe murder in Detroit that looks like the work of this son of a bitch he's been tracking for the past five years.
“Special Agent Henricksen? This is Captain Pete Stockland of the Calvert County police department. I was told to get in touch with you about a call that just came in from one of our hospitals.”
“And why's that?”
“They just admitted a guy fitting the description of one of your fugitives. Six and a half feet, brown hair, hazel eyes? Here under the name John Hetfield.”
He looks for his keys. “Asthmatic?”
“Yep.”
“Another guy with him?”
“Right again.”
Coat. Shoes. “I'm twenty minutes away.”
“They're not going to let them go until the sick one's stable.”
“Then they have twenty minutes to get him stable.” Henricksen hangs up.
**
Dean sits by the bed and runs his fingers lightly up and down Sam's arm. The kid's barely awake, oxygen mask on, still breathing too weakly to be wheezing much. His color's a little better but he still feels like hell, and he's fucking tough as nails about most of these so when it gets to him, when it really fucking tires him out, yeah, Dean gets a little hands-on. Sam likes it, though.
“Hurts?” Dean says, quietly.
Sam nods.
“C'mere.” He gets Sam to roll over onto his side enough so Dean can reach his back, and he runs the flat of his hand up and down Sam's spine. “It's getting better now, yeah? You're gonna be fine.”
They had to investigate some rotted-out boathouse a few days ago, which obviously normally isn't the kind of thing that Sam's lungs adore but they can usually handle it, but there must have been some kind of new and exciting mold in there because Sam's body freaked the fuck out and has been a twitchy little bitch ever since, and he hasn't slept in something like forty hours because he can't fucking breathe so sue Dean if he's trying to put his kid to sleep right now, all right?
But Sam has to go and cough for two and a half minutes so Dean just hold his shoulders still and presses the heel of his hand between Sam's shoulder blades.
“I'm really sorry you don't feel well,” Dean says. Quietly.
Sam rolls over a little and starts to give Dean his pissed-off face, so Dean adds, “Not blaming myself sorry, okay? Sorry like...like my kid here feels like crap and I wish I could help and I'm fucking sorry you have to deal with this. Okay?”
Sam closes his eyes, nods a little.
“Okay. Good. You're going to be fine. Day and a half here, maybe? Fix you all up.”
Sam nudges the mask off. “Can't stay that long.”
“Do you have a death wish? Put the fucking mask back on.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Won't die without it.”
“No, I will fucking kill you. Mask on. And we'll stay until you're breathing. Anyone tries to arrest us, I'll fight them off Karate Kid style.”
Sam gives Dean this fucking smile and Dean says, “Yeah, yeah, don't get weepy,” and slips the mask back on him, pats it a little. “Good.”
Sam closes his his eyes and starts to drift off, but then a minute later his eyes are snapped open and wide and Dean says, “What, what?” and turns around and is prepared for a fucking ghost or something fucking normal and doable and then there's the last person in the entire goddamn world that Dean wants to see, Hen-fucking-rick-fucking-sen, standing in the doorway of his kid's fucking hospital room with his arms crossed and no. No. Not now.
“Well, well, well,” Henricksen says. “Should have taken better care of yourself, Sam.”
Sam grabs Dean's shoulder and holds him back because he correctly deduced that Dean was about to fucking lunge at this guy because show up and arrest Dean, fine, whatever, don't you dare come in here all new and pretend to know something about Sam's lungs, not when Dean and Sam have spent twenty-three fucking years with the things and they're still shaking their heads all fucking incredulous at the things half the time, and this wasn't anyone's fault and it sure as hell wasn't Sam's, and Dean feels vulnerable and naked and terrified and God knows how Sam with his hospital gown and his oxygen mask is getting through this.
Another cop comes up, takes Dean's hand off Sam's arm, cuffs him.
Dean closes his eyes for a second, forces calm, looks at Sam. “Call Bobby. Get him to come be with you. I'll make him my phone call and fill him in, but he needs to know you need him.”
Henricksen says, “Wait a second. Dean. You think we're leaving here without Sam? You're not the only one in this room with a murder charge.”
No.
No fucking way.
“You son of a bitch,” Dean says. “He's sick. Why do you think he's fucking here?”
“Nurse said no fever.” Henricksen looks at the monitors. “And I'm no doctor, but those numbers look okay to me.”
“Yeah, he's pumped the fuck full of oxygen, of course his stats are okay. You want to see how fast they fall when he's out of here? He doesn't need a fever, he's a fucking asthmatic having a fucking asthma attack and if you touch him-”
Another cop-a-fucking-nother one-takes off Sam's oxygen mask and calls a nurse in to pull out his IV.
“Get your fucking hands off of him,” Dean says. “He can take off his own damn mask.”
Sam bites down hard, doesn't say anything. Watches Dean.
“You're putting us in one fucking car,” Dean says. “You don't get him alone.”
For whatever fucking reason, Henricksen agrees.
It's probably time for Dean to start counting blessings.
Shit.
**
Henricksen has brought in a lot of bad guys. He's brought in his fair share of villains and sidekicks. Hell, he's busted brothers before. But he's never seen-never even heard of-two criminals as in-sync, as rehearsed, and as goddamn codependent as the Winchester brothers.
So getting to watch the Winchesters interact, getting to see how they act when they're cornered? That's part of the damn plan. It's the part that comes right before separating them.
As soon as Sam's dressed and cuffed and the paperwork's signed, two of the local officers hustle them out the door and into the backseat of one of the cars. Henricksen nods at the buddy cops trying to climb in with them, and says, “I'm going to take shotgun on this one.”
He watches the Winchesters in the rearview mirror on the way to the station. Dean is fidgety and anxious, hardly taking his eyes off of Sam, and Sam is pale and hunched over and milking this hospitalized fugitive crap for all it's worth.
“All right?” Dean mumbles to him.
“Plateaued for now.”
“Should take a hit, probably.”
“They took it.”
“You're fucking kidding me.”
Sam shakes his head.
Dean raises his voice. “Hey. You took his fucking inhaler?”
“It's a drug,” Henricksen says. “We're not going to let him have drugs on his person. We'll keep it at the front desk. Someone will get it to him if he needs it.”
“Haven't you read our fucking files cover to cover by now? He doesn't have pansyass, fat-kid-in-gym-class asthma, he has kick-your-ass-at-a-moment's-notice asthma, and make one guess who's going to be better able to tell if needs it, some desk jockey or Sam?”
“It's okay, Dean,” Sam says. “Calm down.”
Dean growls and throws himself back in the seat. “Not fucking okay. If you get worse because of this-”
“Dean? Let's be fucking realistic, okay?” Sam's almost too quiet for Henricksen to hear. “I'm going to get worse because of this. Let's keep cool heads about it and we'll figure it out.”
Dean struggles against the handcuffs for a minute. Henricksen can't figure out what he's trying to do, but Sam says, “Just use two hands, moron,” and Dean puts both hands on Sam's back and rubs circles over his shoulder blades.
Sam grips Dean's sleeve between his fingers.
Henricksen hadn't figured them for the touchy type, but he really should have.
**
They're all of two fucking feet inside the station when someone gets his hands all over Sam and pulls him one way and someone's pulling Dean the other way and Sam says, “Wait, no-” and if Sam says no Sam fucking said no and Dean says, “You've got to be fucking kidding me, he's five minutes out of the fucking hospital and you want him alone?”
“Don't worry,” Henricksen says. “He won't be alone,” because he's aiming to follow Sammy into the interrogation room, Dean gets it, and wow, is it a fucking shock that that doesn't make Dean feel much more comforted?
He can't fucking think. “You let my kid die, I swear to God,” he says to Henricksen.
“He's no use to us if he can't talk, Dean.”
And some other cop pulls Dean into a cell and leaves him there and fantastic, just fucking fantastic.
Sam better not be a fucking idiot and try to protect Dean, because that would just piss him the hell off and Dean's too tired for that shit. He doesn't need the legal system to fucking forgive him, he's going to break them the hell out of here, but that means Sam needs to live that long which means he needs them to not try to break him, so Sam needs to fucking crumble and blame the whole thing on Dean and try not to be some stoic stubborn asshole and yeah, call it a hunch, but Dean thinks that's kind of a long shot because his fucking kid is the most frustrating son of a bitch on the planet and fuck this, fuck this, this is what you get for loving a sick kid, Dean, these are the things that always fucking happen and you should have kept him a fuck of a lot safer than this, so much fucking safer. Look, the kid should be in bed right now and that's all there fucking is to it.
Bars in this cage are kind of rusty, hmm.
**
Henricksen nods to the cop to get the hell out and slides in across the table. “Well. Sam. Nice to get to finally talk to you alone.”
Sam's cuffed to the table and twisting his hands all around. He's scanning the room, every damn corner, like he expects a hole to appear that he can climb out of. He's got a funny way of breathing Henricksen couldn't hear around the noise before, but now it's damn near impossible to miss. He takes this short, controlled breaths that snag on the way in and whistle on the way out. It's a wonder he's running around wreaking havoc on the whole world with lungs like those. Henricksen gives credit where it's due.
Maybe that's the right place to start. “How you feeling over there? Want some water?”
“Stop being nice to me.”
“It's like I told your brother. You're no use to us if you're not breathing well enough to talk.”
Sam swallows and still doesn't look up. “Coffee, please.”
“That'll help?”
He nods.
“Coffee it is.” He opens the door and hollers for some, then comes down to the table. “Must be rough. Living with that.”
“Can we cut to the chase?”
“Sam, you're cuffed to a table. I'll cut to whatever the hell I want to, and right now I'm asking if it's hard living with that.”
“I don't have to answer anything.”
“You want to get surly already? That's your strategy? Before we're even talking shop?”
“Fine, you want open? I don't like talking about my lungs with people I don't know. I hate it. It makes me feel like I can't breathe. And I already can't breathe.” He tries to move his hands. “Could you...can you unchain me from the table? Please? You can keep my wrists cuffed.”
“How generous of you.”
Sam finally looks at him, these wet eyes, this frown. “Please?”
“Bet you're used to getting everything you want with that one.”
Sam breathes out hard with a crapload of noise and slums down in his chair, tilts his head back.
“Answer some questions and maybe I'll uncuff you,” Henricksen says.
Sam closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose. He sounds stuffed up as all hell, like a kid with a cold.
“You sick?” Henricksen says.
“No shit.” But he shakes his head. “Allergies.”
“Allergies and asthma. Damn. And Dad and Dean have you on the road from the time you were born, a whole life of boot camp, raising you into a killer. Must have been rough.”
“Because if I didn't have asthma, it'd be easy?”
“Aha, so I am hearing some resentment, here.”
“Sarcasm, Henricksen. You're hearing sarcasm. Can't fucking breathe, where's your bitch with that coffee?”
Henricksen goes out to the office and fills a cup himself. He comes back and uncuffs Sam, slides the cup across the table. Sam gulps it down like it isn't hot.
“It's funny,” Henricksen says. “Expected this attitude from Dean. Not from you.”
Sam pushes the empty cup away and rests his elbows on the table. He holds his head and doesn't say anything.
“Why's the coffee help?”
“Caffeine.”
“How's that work?”
“Liver breaks it down, one of the things is-” he turns his head and coughs a few times. “theophylline. That it's broken into. Relaxes airway muscles, kills swelling.”
“Smart kid.”
Sam looks at him. “What Dean said: you read our files.”
“What Dean said. Bet that's not the first time you've uttered that little phrase.”
“Mmm, so that's the theory you're going with? I'm sick and defenseless, Dad's little puppet, now Dean's. Kicked into line, afraid to step out, they press a gun in my hands and I pull the trigger while the guilt eats me up inside like, I don't know, a chronic disease?”
“Your words.”
“Your bullshit. My life. My choices. My lungs. My fucking inhaler, can you get it?”
“In a minute.”
“I need it now.” He presses a hand into his chest. He is starting to sound pretty terrible, Henricksen will give him that.
“I know you'd probably be more agreeable if you felt better,” Henricksen says. “So I'm cutting you a lot of slack, here. I keep reading you're the nice one.”
Sam wheezes and pushes the heel of his hand into his eyes.
“Your brother looks out for you,” Henricksen says.
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, nods.
“Means you'd probably let him get away with a lot, wouldn't you? Out of gratitude, hell, maybe even desperation, if you need him that badly.”
“I'm clearly not one of my brother's alleged murder victims, so why don't you-” he breaks off and wheezes for a minute-“tell me where you're going with this?”
“All right, I will. Jury's going to be sympathetic to a younger brother who's being taking advantage of by an older brother. Now do you see what I'm saying? You two were pretty hands-on in the car.”
“I couldn't breathe, asshole.”
“Doesn't seem like such a rarity in your world.”
“So, what, you're trying to add rape to your laundry list of Dean's fake crimes? Just shut up.”
“Hey, I'm not forcing you to open up to me. Frankly I don't give a shit what kind of trauma you've been through, you're a killer and all I see when I look at you is a damn killer. But I thought I'd let you know that if your brother's an even worse person than we have him pegged for, you can use that. And if not? If you two are just the best friends around? Makes sense you'd want to protect him, then. But he's not getting out of this. And if you don't want to join him in death row, you better start talking. How'd you two get out of Milwaulkee?”
“I need to see him. Now.”
“You need to start practicing taking care of yourself, Sammy. You've got a handful of minutes left with Dean and then you better hope your cell blocks are close and his execution date doesn't come up for a while.”
“Can't fucking breathe and don't fucking call me that.” He wheezes his way into a coughing fit.
“I'll get your inhaler. Needed to drop by and see your brother anyway.” He cuffs Sam back up.
“I need you to hurry,” Sam says. “I mean it.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“I mean it. This isn't...” he stops and pants. “...let the prisoner suffer a little, okay? This is I'm going to fucking die.”
Henricksen is a lot of things.
Inhumane is not one of them.
“We're not going to let you die, Sam,” he says.
He closes the door and tells the desk sergeant to get the hell in there and make the boy breathe.
**
Dean's still pacing when footsteps come down the hallway and stop at his cell. “There you are,” Henricksen says.
“Who's with Sam?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Someone should be with him.”
“We're not here to hold Sam's hand.”
Dean will not freak out.
Dean will breathe.
Dean will make plans, and right now his plan is that he's going to fucking kill everyone in the fucking world who's ever been mean to his kid, how does that sound? He and Sam can climb through the wreckage and sleep on top of the car and roam the whole fucking planet, just him and Sam and all the abandoned gas stations and motels and pharmacies they could ever ask for and a world full of nice people staying the fuck out of their way. Just him and Sam until the end of goddamn time.
If he doesn't explode until a million fucking pieces and Sam doesn't stop breathing before he can do it.
“Told the desk sergeant to bring in his inhaler,” Henricksen says. “He wasn't feeling his best. He's being quite the crotchety thing, too.”
“You'd be cranky too if you couldn't breathe. He shouldn't be out of the fucking hospital.”
“You sure do spend a lot of time worrying about Sam, don't you? I'd say you're probably either worrying about Sam or killing someone at any given moment, that sound about right?”
“Go to hell.”
“Must get tiring, huh? He probably slows you down.”
“Fuck you, I slow him down.”
“Truth is, he'd probably be better off without you, wouldn't he?” Henricksen's all fucking close to Dean's cell, now, go the fuck away, asshole. “How'd he get so sick today, huh? I'm guessing it wasn't by lying around his house in the suburbs, reading the paper, drinking coffee?”
“So now you're an asthma expert. Perfect.”
“You're probably hurting him more than you're helping him, aren't you? Dragging him around, bringing him in on your satanic little ritual. What does murder do to his stress levels?”
This isn't the first time someone's used this tactic on Dean and he always finds it fucking hilarious. He knows they think it's the thing that'll break him, cut him to the core or whatever the fuck, but do they really think this is something Dean doesn't think to himself every fucking day? It's like trying to hurt Dean by talking about what he had for breakfast or what color socks he's wearing. Bacon, maroon, and he takes shitty care of Sam's asthma, thanks for the fucking newsflash. These people are ridiculous.
“Trying to help your brother, here, Dean. Trying to let him go. You want to give us a reason why we should?”
“Poor little sick kid, said it yourself. Get the hell away from me and go check on Sam.”
“Probably about time you started worrying about yourself, Dean.”
“People keep using that line on us. It's adorable.”
“Look, Dean.” Henricksen wraps his fingers around one of the bars. “I'll level with you. I believe that you really do love Sam.”
“Almost like you're a detective or something.”
“But how much of that is this blind obsession your assassin Daddy beat into you? Whose choice was it for you to love Sammy this much?”
“Don't call him that.”
“Something else going on under the surface there, Dean? You seemed mighty intent on getting to be with him. Control him. Touch him. Something we should know?”
Dean considers getting raging fucking angry and trying to choke the asshole through the bars and screaming at the universe and John and himself and everything. He considers it and decides against it. He's too old for this shit.
He shrugs a shoulder. “I'm really not seeing what this has to do with you thinking I'm some mass-murderer.”
“Always interesting, trying to get into the psychology of a killer. But you're right. Not helping you get processed and not helping your brother breathe, is it? You want to get him some decent medical attention? Let's start with some confessions from you and work from there. Maybe you'll get a judge who's drunk enough to set a reasonable bail for Sam and that Bobby of yours can take him back to the hospital.”
“Just bite me.”
“Or,” Henricksen says. “You can answer some easy questions, and we'll let you and Sam sit together for a while. You can rub his back.”
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
Fuck how badly Dean wants to sit with Sam. (Fuck how badly he wants to rub his back.)
“Keep talking,” Dean says.
“Don't answer anything, Dean,” a woman's voice says, and then five-foot-nothing of red hair and freckles is charging its way down the hallway and presenting Henricksen with some papers. “I'm Laura Lincoln, I'll be representing you and your brother,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Dean.”
“You too. Have you seen Sam?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you get in with him first? He's sick and I don't trust these assholes not to kill him.”
“We should all really sit down and go over-”
“I don't think Sammy's in any state to go over anything,” Dean says. “He needs a break. They dragged him out of the hospital to bring him here.”
She looks at Henricksen with this look on her face and Dean tries not to laugh because he has a feeling Henricksen's going to get kicked in the proverbial balls by a size five shoe.
“I'll be back,” she tells both of them, and Dean's instantly reminded of John, called away to go kill something in the middle of chewing one of them out-I'll be back. And fuck but he always was.
Henricksen turns back to Dean and says, “Looks like we've got some more time.”
“I've got a lawyer, now, you think I'm answering your questions?”
“Hope Sam's okay.”
“Sam doesn't deserve any of this.”
“Sam's a murderer who probably doesn't deserve a brother who cares about him, even if that brother's an even worse scumbag than he is.”
Dean closes his eyes and breathes out, hard. When he feels like he won't fucking puke, he says, “If you screw up his lungs, I swear to God.”
“You swear to God what, Dean? What are you going to do?” Henricksen shakes his head. “How are you going to protect your brother once we've strapped you down for a lethal injection? Foresight not your strong suit, Dean. Should leave the thinking to Sammy, huh? Putting yourself on the Most Wanted list isn't exactly the best way to take care of your kid, is it?”
“Don't you do that. Don't you fucking call him that.”
Henricksen raises an eyebrow.
Dean's chest hurts. “Just let me see him.”
“Begging? Really?”
“Something's wrong.”
“And how do you know that?”
“It's Sam.”
And then a police officer's coming down the hallway saying, “Henricksen? We've got a problem here,” and Dean slams his head back against the wall so hard everything grays out for a minute.
**
Sam's ten times worse than when Henricksen left him. He's cuffed with both hands on his forehead, forcing air in and out of his lungs. Laura's next to him with her hand on his shoulder.
Sam looks up and fixes him with a glare. “You said I was...getting my fucking...inhaler.”
“They didn't bring it to you?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Son of a...hold on.” He goes to the desk and hunts around until he finds it. He brings it in and starts to uncuff Sam, but apparently he's perfectly happy to use it with his wrists locked together. He sucks on it and slams it down on the table, holds his breath. A minute later, he's not sounding any better.
“Get my brother,” he says. “Please.”
Henricksen says, “What's he going to do that we can't?”
Laura says, “Don't you think this has gone on long enough? Bring his brother. What the hell harm's it going to do?”
Not forty-five seconds later Dean barrels through the door with a cop on his shoulder and flies to the chair in front of Sam before they can even push him into it. “Sammy. Sammy. Hey.” He doesn't glance down as he's handcuffed to the table.
“Hey,” Sam wheezes.
“You all right?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Fuck. Okay. Can you guys back up some? Give him some space?” He looks at the chains around his wrists. “Can I get on his side?”
“You're fine there,” Henricksen says.
Dean takes a deep breath and when he exhales, he's like a completely different person. He's calm, quiet...deliberate.
Well. That's interesting.
“Hey,” Dean says, and when Sam looks up at him, he smiles. “Hey. Just watch me and breathe with me, all right? We're fine.” He breathes in slow, short breaths. Halfway between Sam and something normal.
“This is bad,” Sam says.
“Stop, I don't want to hear it. We're not drama-queening right now. We're just breathing. Come on.” He breathes with Sam for another minute or so, then picks the inhaler up and shakes it. He presses it into Sam's hand. “Now. You're all right.”
They go through the process a few times, and each time Dean gets colder and harder and more like someone who could slaughter a bank full of people if he had the opportunity. “Breathe,” Dean says, glancing around at everyone else. “Not giving you any other fucking choice, Sam. No falling apart.”
“Not falling apart, fuck you.”
Dean grins. “There we go.” He waits for Sam to take the inhaler again, then says, “He sounds a little further from death's door, at least. He needs to be a in a room with a fucking window out of this dusty fucking place, can we get him there?”
Henricksen says, “I can get him there. You can stay in here with your lawyer.”
“Jesus, what is this?”
“It's the only way to get either of you to pay any damn attention to anything but each other,” he says. He unlocks Sam's wrists and says, “Come on, Sam.” He's gentle with him.
He brings Sam to a different interrogation room, one with a window, and chains Sam up again before he opens it. Sam leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes.
“You up to talking?” Henricksen says.
Sam shakes his head without opening his eyes.
“All right.”
Ten minutes later, Laura comes in and says she's chatted with Dean and he's back in the cell. She glances at Sam and says, “He awake?”
“Yeah,” Henricksen says. “I don't think you're getting anything out of him today, though.”
Sam cracks open his eyes, says, “Feeling a little better. We need to talk?” He coughs, heavy and wet, into his elbow.
She says, “The air's helping?”
“I just want to be with my brother.”
She nods. “We can do that. I have stuff to fact-check now that I've talked to Dean, anyway.” She looks at Henricksen. “Any reason he can't have twenty minutes?”
“Need a hospital,” Sam says, quietly.
She says, “We'll see what we can do, Sam, all right?” She looks at Henricksen. “Can we get him there?”
“It's going to take a lot of men and a lot of guns.”
“Look into it. Bring him back to the cell first.”
He hauls Sam up and down the hall. Sam's covers his mouth by his hand when they pass by a load of cops, and Henricksen considers for the first time that it might be embarrassing for a hardass criminal to breathe like that.
Dean's standing up when they round the corner, watching them with his eyes wide and his jaw set.
Henriksen lets Sam in and thinks that he should go check on those hospital arrangements. But he doesn't, right away. He turns the corner enough so he's out of sight, and he listens.
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Shit, Sam. Let's sit you down, come on.”
There's a pause, then, some shuffling around. Dean cursing quietly.
“So fucking tired,” Sam says.
“I know. Jesus, you've got to be. This sucks. This is fucking shit. I shouldn't have brought you to the hospital.”
“Would have died.”
“Yeah, well, you still might.”
Sam laughs a little. “So helpful.”
“Shut up, I'm worried.”
“I know.”
Sam starts coughing, and Dean says, “Okay, c'mere, lie down. On your side. Head here. Good. Christ, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to be such an asshole in there.”
“'s okay.”
“Didn't want to start bawling about my fucked-up little brother in a roomful of strangers. I knew what that would do for your ego. You'd be teasing me about being the center of my fucking world for the rest of our damn lives.”
“You're so fucking annoying.”
“Yeah. Did the window help?”
“Yep.”
“Perfect.”
Sam coughs some more and Dean says, “Give it a rest, buddy. Here. That better?”
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“Handcuffs are driving me fucking crazy.”
Yeah. There's nothing strange between the two of them. Sure. Henricksen believes that about as much as he believes their crap about demons.
“Shit,” Dean says. “You think that'll work?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “The breathing thing, I mean.”
“Oh.”
“Hey.”
“What? Jesus, Sam.”
“It's going to be fine. We've done this before.” There's a pause, the noise of someone shifting around. “They're going to see about getting me to a hospital. So that'll help.”
“Okay. Okay.”
There's a long pause then, nothing but the noise of Sam's breathing, then Dean says, “Shit, Sammy. I just...”
“No. Shh.”
“I'm so fucking sorry, Sam.”
“Stop, okay?”
“I'm just really fucking sorry.”
“I'm so tired, Dean. Can we do this guilt trip later?”
“We can do it fucking always, how about that?”
“I want to sleep. Just play with my hair a little.”
“Girl.”
“Feels good, though.”
They go quiet, then, and hell if Henriksen's going to stand around and listen to them sleep. Not when the one they really need for questioning sounds like he's about to drop dead in there.
He glances around the corner and gets a quick look at them-Sam with his eyes closed, head on Dean's knee, and Dean leaning back against the wall looking wrecked, beaten, and trapped.
Perfect.
He leaves for three minutes, maybe, to make a phone call. By the time he gets back, they've vanished.
Check the cells for rust next time, says a note left on the bench. And thanks for the window. xoxo, Sam.
Summary: The FBI wants the boys. The FBI knows one of them's a six-foot-five asthmatic. And the FBI knows they don't like to be separated.
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 2, to be safe. Language.This takes place sometime after Nightshifter.
Wordcount: 5,686
Author's Note: Sammyverse, yaaaay. Title is from "Time Turned Fragile" by Motion City Soundtrack, one of my favorite songs ever. The internet canNOT agree on whether it's Henrickson or Henricksen--I went with the latter because superwiki does.
---
“You just hold on, okay?”
Sam's gray and rigid in the passenger seat, his back arched and his head tipped back. He barely fucking moves when he nods.
“Shit. Shit. I should have brought you in two fucking days ago.” He's not sick, it's just this fucking attack that isn't letting him the hell go, and ordinarily, yeah, Dean would have hauled his ass in two days ago when the kid stopped having enough oxygen to sleep, but they both know why they can't just run to fucking hospital whenever Sam's lungs bitch out anymore, they both know it and they're sure as fuck not going to talk about it now because his kid's had two EpiPens in the past half hour and apparently still thinks it's time to fucking die everywhere so Dean's not seeing a lot of other fucking options here, okay?
Sam makes his first noise in a while, moves a little air.
“Good.” Dean grips Sam's knee and drives the fuck faster. “Hold on.”
Sam digs his nails into Dean's wrist.
“I know,” Dean says. “I'm right here.”
**
It's just past 2 AM when Henricksen gets the call. He's still awake, eating leftover Chinese, flipping through the case file of an axe murder in Detroit that looks like the work of this son of a bitch he's been tracking for the past five years.
“Special Agent Henricksen? This is Captain Pete Stockland of the Calvert County police department. I was told to get in touch with you about a call that just came in from one of our hospitals.”
“And why's that?”
“They just admitted a guy fitting the description of one of your fugitives. Six and a half feet, brown hair, hazel eyes? Here under the name John Hetfield.”
He looks for his keys. “Asthmatic?”
“Yep.”
“Another guy with him?”
“Right again.”
Coat. Shoes. “I'm twenty minutes away.”
“They're not going to let them go until the sick one's stable.”
“Then they have twenty minutes to get him stable.” Henricksen hangs up.
**
Dean sits by the bed and runs his fingers lightly up and down Sam's arm. The kid's barely awake, oxygen mask on, still breathing too weakly to be wheezing much. His color's a little better but he still feels like hell, and he's fucking tough as nails about most of these so when it gets to him, when it really fucking tires him out, yeah, Dean gets a little hands-on. Sam likes it, though.
“Hurts?” Dean says, quietly.
Sam nods.
“C'mere.” He gets Sam to roll over onto his side enough so Dean can reach his back, and he runs the flat of his hand up and down Sam's spine. “It's getting better now, yeah? You're gonna be fine.”
They had to investigate some rotted-out boathouse a few days ago, which obviously normally isn't the kind of thing that Sam's lungs adore but they can usually handle it, but there must have been some kind of new and exciting mold in there because Sam's body freaked the fuck out and has been a twitchy little bitch ever since, and he hasn't slept in something like forty hours because he can't fucking breathe so sue Dean if he's trying to put his kid to sleep right now, all right?
But Sam has to go and cough for two and a half minutes so Dean just hold his shoulders still and presses the heel of his hand between Sam's shoulder blades.
“I'm really sorry you don't feel well,” Dean says. Quietly.
Sam rolls over a little and starts to give Dean his pissed-off face, so Dean adds, “Not blaming myself sorry, okay? Sorry like...like my kid here feels like crap and I wish I could help and I'm fucking sorry you have to deal with this. Okay?”
Sam closes his eyes, nods a little.
“Okay. Good. You're going to be fine. Day and a half here, maybe? Fix you all up.”
Sam nudges the mask off. “Can't stay that long.”
“Do you have a death wish? Put the fucking mask back on.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Won't die without it.”
“No, I will fucking kill you. Mask on. And we'll stay until you're breathing. Anyone tries to arrest us, I'll fight them off Karate Kid style.”
Sam gives Dean this fucking smile and Dean says, “Yeah, yeah, don't get weepy,” and slips the mask back on him, pats it a little. “Good.”
Sam closes his his eyes and starts to drift off, but then a minute later his eyes are snapped open and wide and Dean says, “What, what?” and turns around and is prepared for a fucking ghost or something fucking normal and doable and then there's the last person in the entire goddamn world that Dean wants to see, Hen-fucking-rick-fucking-sen, standing in the doorway of his kid's fucking hospital room with his arms crossed and no. No. Not now.
“Well, well, well,” Henricksen says. “Should have taken better care of yourself, Sam.”
Sam grabs Dean's shoulder and holds him back because he correctly deduced that Dean was about to fucking lunge at this guy because show up and arrest Dean, fine, whatever, don't you dare come in here all new and pretend to know something about Sam's lungs, not when Dean and Sam have spent twenty-three fucking years with the things and they're still shaking their heads all fucking incredulous at the things half the time, and this wasn't anyone's fault and it sure as hell wasn't Sam's, and Dean feels vulnerable and naked and terrified and God knows how Sam with his hospital gown and his oxygen mask is getting through this.
Another cop comes up, takes Dean's hand off Sam's arm, cuffs him.
Dean closes his eyes for a second, forces calm, looks at Sam. “Call Bobby. Get him to come be with you. I'll make him my phone call and fill him in, but he needs to know you need him.”
Henricksen says, “Wait a second. Dean. You think we're leaving here without Sam? You're not the only one in this room with a murder charge.”
No.
No fucking way.
“You son of a bitch,” Dean says. “He's sick. Why do you think he's fucking here?”
“Nurse said no fever.” Henricksen looks at the monitors. “And I'm no doctor, but those numbers look okay to me.”
“Yeah, he's pumped the fuck full of oxygen, of course his stats are okay. You want to see how fast they fall when he's out of here? He doesn't need a fever, he's a fucking asthmatic having a fucking asthma attack and if you touch him-”
Another cop-a-fucking-nother one-takes off Sam's oxygen mask and calls a nurse in to pull out his IV.
“Get your fucking hands off of him,” Dean says. “He can take off his own damn mask.”
Sam bites down hard, doesn't say anything. Watches Dean.
“You're putting us in one fucking car,” Dean says. “You don't get him alone.”
For whatever fucking reason, Henricksen agrees.
It's probably time for Dean to start counting blessings.
Shit.
**
Henricksen has brought in a lot of bad guys. He's brought in his fair share of villains and sidekicks. Hell, he's busted brothers before. But he's never seen-never even heard of-two criminals as in-sync, as rehearsed, and as goddamn codependent as the Winchester brothers.
So getting to watch the Winchesters interact, getting to see how they act when they're cornered? That's part of the damn plan. It's the part that comes right before separating them.
As soon as Sam's dressed and cuffed and the paperwork's signed, two of the local officers hustle them out the door and into the backseat of one of the cars. Henricksen nods at the buddy cops trying to climb in with them, and says, “I'm going to take shotgun on this one.”
He watches the Winchesters in the rearview mirror on the way to the station. Dean is fidgety and anxious, hardly taking his eyes off of Sam, and Sam is pale and hunched over and milking this hospitalized fugitive crap for all it's worth.
“All right?” Dean mumbles to him.
“Plateaued for now.”
“Should take a hit, probably.”
“They took it.”
“You're fucking kidding me.”
Sam shakes his head.
Dean raises his voice. “Hey. You took his fucking inhaler?”
“It's a drug,” Henricksen says. “We're not going to let him have drugs on his person. We'll keep it at the front desk. Someone will get it to him if he needs it.”
“Haven't you read our fucking files cover to cover by now? He doesn't have pansyass, fat-kid-in-gym-class asthma, he has kick-your-ass-at-a-moment's-notice asthma, and make one guess who's going to be better able to tell if needs it, some desk jockey or Sam?”
“It's okay, Dean,” Sam says. “Calm down.”
Dean growls and throws himself back in the seat. “Not fucking okay. If you get worse because of this-”
“Dean? Let's be fucking realistic, okay?” Sam's almost too quiet for Henricksen to hear. “I'm going to get worse because of this. Let's keep cool heads about it and we'll figure it out.”
Dean struggles against the handcuffs for a minute. Henricksen can't figure out what he's trying to do, but Sam says, “Just use two hands, moron,” and Dean puts both hands on Sam's back and rubs circles over his shoulder blades.
Sam grips Dean's sleeve between his fingers.
Henricksen hadn't figured them for the touchy type, but he really should have.
**
They're all of two fucking feet inside the station when someone gets his hands all over Sam and pulls him one way and someone's pulling Dean the other way and Sam says, “Wait, no-” and if Sam says no Sam fucking said no and Dean says, “You've got to be fucking kidding me, he's five minutes out of the fucking hospital and you want him alone?”
“Don't worry,” Henricksen says. “He won't be alone,” because he's aiming to follow Sammy into the interrogation room, Dean gets it, and wow, is it a fucking shock that that doesn't make Dean feel much more comforted?
He can't fucking think. “You let my kid die, I swear to God,” he says to Henricksen.
“He's no use to us if he can't talk, Dean.”
And some other cop pulls Dean into a cell and leaves him there and fantastic, just fucking fantastic.
Sam better not be a fucking idiot and try to protect Dean, because that would just piss him the hell off and Dean's too tired for that shit. He doesn't need the legal system to fucking forgive him, he's going to break them the hell out of here, but that means Sam needs to live that long which means he needs them to not try to break him, so Sam needs to fucking crumble and blame the whole thing on Dean and try not to be some stoic stubborn asshole and yeah, call it a hunch, but Dean thinks that's kind of a long shot because his fucking kid is the most frustrating son of a bitch on the planet and fuck this, fuck this, this is what you get for loving a sick kid, Dean, these are the things that always fucking happen and you should have kept him a fuck of a lot safer than this, so much fucking safer. Look, the kid should be in bed right now and that's all there fucking is to it.
Bars in this cage are kind of rusty, hmm.
**
Henricksen nods to the cop to get the hell out and slides in across the table. “Well. Sam. Nice to get to finally talk to you alone.”
Sam's cuffed to the table and twisting his hands all around. He's scanning the room, every damn corner, like he expects a hole to appear that he can climb out of. He's got a funny way of breathing Henricksen couldn't hear around the noise before, but now it's damn near impossible to miss. He takes this short, controlled breaths that snag on the way in and whistle on the way out. It's a wonder he's running around wreaking havoc on the whole world with lungs like those. Henricksen gives credit where it's due.
Maybe that's the right place to start. “How you feeling over there? Want some water?”
“Stop being nice to me.”
“It's like I told your brother. You're no use to us if you're not breathing well enough to talk.”
Sam swallows and still doesn't look up. “Coffee, please.”
“That'll help?”
He nods.
“Coffee it is.” He opens the door and hollers for some, then comes down to the table. “Must be rough. Living with that.”
“Can we cut to the chase?”
“Sam, you're cuffed to a table. I'll cut to whatever the hell I want to, and right now I'm asking if it's hard living with that.”
“I don't have to answer anything.”
“You want to get surly already? That's your strategy? Before we're even talking shop?”
“Fine, you want open? I don't like talking about my lungs with people I don't know. I hate it. It makes me feel like I can't breathe. And I already can't breathe.” He tries to move his hands. “Could you...can you unchain me from the table? Please? You can keep my wrists cuffed.”
“How generous of you.”
Sam finally looks at him, these wet eyes, this frown. “Please?”
“Bet you're used to getting everything you want with that one.”
Sam breathes out hard with a crapload of noise and slums down in his chair, tilts his head back.
“Answer some questions and maybe I'll uncuff you,” Henricksen says.
Sam closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose. He sounds stuffed up as all hell, like a kid with a cold.
“You sick?” Henricksen says.
“No shit.” But he shakes his head. “Allergies.”
“Allergies and asthma. Damn. And Dad and Dean have you on the road from the time you were born, a whole life of boot camp, raising you into a killer. Must have been rough.”
“Because if I didn't have asthma, it'd be easy?”
“Aha, so I am hearing some resentment, here.”
“Sarcasm, Henricksen. You're hearing sarcasm. Can't fucking breathe, where's your bitch with that coffee?”
Henricksen goes out to the office and fills a cup himself. He comes back and uncuffs Sam, slides the cup across the table. Sam gulps it down like it isn't hot.
“It's funny,” Henricksen says. “Expected this attitude from Dean. Not from you.”
Sam pushes the empty cup away and rests his elbows on the table. He holds his head and doesn't say anything.
“Why's the coffee help?”
“Caffeine.”
“How's that work?”
“Liver breaks it down, one of the things is-” he turns his head and coughs a few times. “theophylline. That it's broken into. Relaxes airway muscles, kills swelling.”
“Smart kid.”
Sam looks at him. “What Dean said: you read our files.”
“What Dean said. Bet that's not the first time you've uttered that little phrase.”
“Mmm, so that's the theory you're going with? I'm sick and defenseless, Dad's little puppet, now Dean's. Kicked into line, afraid to step out, they press a gun in my hands and I pull the trigger while the guilt eats me up inside like, I don't know, a chronic disease?”
“Your words.”
“Your bullshit. My life. My choices. My lungs. My fucking inhaler, can you get it?”
“In a minute.”
“I need it now.” He presses a hand into his chest. He is starting to sound pretty terrible, Henricksen will give him that.
“I know you'd probably be more agreeable if you felt better,” Henricksen says. “So I'm cutting you a lot of slack, here. I keep reading you're the nice one.”
Sam wheezes and pushes the heel of his hand into his eyes.
“Your brother looks out for you,” Henricksen says.
Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, nods.
“Means you'd probably let him get away with a lot, wouldn't you? Out of gratitude, hell, maybe even desperation, if you need him that badly.”
“I'm clearly not one of my brother's alleged murder victims, so why don't you-” he breaks off and wheezes for a minute-“tell me where you're going with this?”
“All right, I will. Jury's going to be sympathetic to a younger brother who's being taking advantage of by an older brother. Now do you see what I'm saying? You two were pretty hands-on in the car.”
“I couldn't breathe, asshole.”
“Doesn't seem like such a rarity in your world.”
“So, what, you're trying to add rape to your laundry list of Dean's fake crimes? Just shut up.”
“Hey, I'm not forcing you to open up to me. Frankly I don't give a shit what kind of trauma you've been through, you're a killer and all I see when I look at you is a damn killer. But I thought I'd let you know that if your brother's an even worse person than we have him pegged for, you can use that. And if not? If you two are just the best friends around? Makes sense you'd want to protect him, then. But he's not getting out of this. And if you don't want to join him in death row, you better start talking. How'd you two get out of Milwaulkee?”
“I need to see him. Now.”
“You need to start practicing taking care of yourself, Sammy. You've got a handful of minutes left with Dean and then you better hope your cell blocks are close and his execution date doesn't come up for a while.”
“Can't fucking breathe and don't fucking call me that.” He wheezes his way into a coughing fit.
“I'll get your inhaler. Needed to drop by and see your brother anyway.” He cuffs Sam back up.
“I need you to hurry,” Sam says. “I mean it.”
“Mmmhmm.”
“I mean it. This isn't...” he stops and pants. “...let the prisoner suffer a little, okay? This is I'm going to fucking die.”
Henricksen is a lot of things.
Inhumane is not one of them.
“We're not going to let you die, Sam,” he says.
He closes the door and tells the desk sergeant to get the hell in there and make the boy breathe.
**
Dean's still pacing when footsteps come down the hallway and stop at his cell. “There you are,” Henricksen says.
“Who's with Sam?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Someone should be with him.”
“We're not here to hold Sam's hand.”
Dean will not freak out.
Dean will breathe.
Dean will make plans, and right now his plan is that he's going to fucking kill everyone in the fucking world who's ever been mean to his kid, how does that sound? He and Sam can climb through the wreckage and sleep on top of the car and roam the whole fucking planet, just him and Sam and all the abandoned gas stations and motels and pharmacies they could ever ask for and a world full of nice people staying the fuck out of their way. Just him and Sam until the end of goddamn time.
If he doesn't explode until a million fucking pieces and Sam doesn't stop breathing before he can do it.
“Told the desk sergeant to bring in his inhaler,” Henricksen says. “He wasn't feeling his best. He's being quite the crotchety thing, too.”
“You'd be cranky too if you couldn't breathe. He shouldn't be out of the fucking hospital.”
“You sure do spend a lot of time worrying about Sam, don't you? I'd say you're probably either worrying about Sam or killing someone at any given moment, that sound about right?”
“Go to hell.”
“Must get tiring, huh? He probably slows you down.”
“Fuck you, I slow him down.”
“Truth is, he'd probably be better off without you, wouldn't he?” Henricksen's all fucking close to Dean's cell, now, go the fuck away, asshole. “How'd he get so sick today, huh? I'm guessing it wasn't by lying around his house in the suburbs, reading the paper, drinking coffee?”
“So now you're an asthma expert. Perfect.”
“You're probably hurting him more than you're helping him, aren't you? Dragging him around, bringing him in on your satanic little ritual. What does murder do to his stress levels?”
This isn't the first time someone's used this tactic on Dean and he always finds it fucking hilarious. He knows they think it's the thing that'll break him, cut him to the core or whatever the fuck, but do they really think this is something Dean doesn't think to himself every fucking day? It's like trying to hurt Dean by talking about what he had for breakfast or what color socks he's wearing. Bacon, maroon, and he takes shitty care of Sam's asthma, thanks for the fucking newsflash. These people are ridiculous.
“Trying to help your brother, here, Dean. Trying to let him go. You want to give us a reason why we should?”
“Poor little sick kid, said it yourself. Get the hell away from me and go check on Sam.”
“Probably about time you started worrying about yourself, Dean.”
“People keep using that line on us. It's adorable.”
“Look, Dean.” Henricksen wraps his fingers around one of the bars. “I'll level with you. I believe that you really do love Sam.”
“Almost like you're a detective or something.”
“But how much of that is this blind obsession your assassin Daddy beat into you? Whose choice was it for you to love Sammy this much?”
“Don't call him that.”
“Something else going on under the surface there, Dean? You seemed mighty intent on getting to be with him. Control him. Touch him. Something we should know?”
Dean considers getting raging fucking angry and trying to choke the asshole through the bars and screaming at the universe and John and himself and everything. He considers it and decides against it. He's too old for this shit.
He shrugs a shoulder. “I'm really not seeing what this has to do with you thinking I'm some mass-murderer.”
“Always interesting, trying to get into the psychology of a killer. But you're right. Not helping you get processed and not helping your brother breathe, is it? You want to get him some decent medical attention? Let's start with some confessions from you and work from there. Maybe you'll get a judge who's drunk enough to set a reasonable bail for Sam and that Bobby of yours can take him back to the hospital.”
“Just bite me.”
“Or,” Henricksen says. “You can answer some easy questions, and we'll let you and Sam sit together for a while. You can rub his back.”
Fuck him.
Fuck him.
Fuck how badly Dean wants to sit with Sam. (Fuck how badly he wants to rub his back.)
“Keep talking,” Dean says.
“Don't answer anything, Dean,” a woman's voice says, and then five-foot-nothing of red hair and freckles is charging its way down the hallway and presenting Henricksen with some papers. “I'm Laura Lincoln, I'll be representing you and your brother,” she says. “Nice to meet you, Dean.”
“You too. Have you seen Sam?”
“Not yet.”
“Can you get in with him first? He's sick and I don't trust these assholes not to kill him.”
“We should all really sit down and go over-”
“I don't think Sammy's in any state to go over anything,” Dean says. “He needs a break. They dragged him out of the hospital to bring him here.”
She looks at Henricksen with this look on her face and Dean tries not to laugh because he has a feeling Henricksen's going to get kicked in the proverbial balls by a size five shoe.
“I'll be back,” she tells both of them, and Dean's instantly reminded of John, called away to go kill something in the middle of chewing one of them out-I'll be back. And fuck but he always was.
Henricksen turns back to Dean and says, “Looks like we've got some more time.”
“I've got a lawyer, now, you think I'm answering your questions?”
“Hope Sam's okay.”
“Sam doesn't deserve any of this.”
“Sam's a murderer who probably doesn't deserve a brother who cares about him, even if that brother's an even worse scumbag than he is.”
Dean closes his eyes and breathes out, hard. When he feels like he won't fucking puke, he says, “If you screw up his lungs, I swear to God.”
“You swear to God what, Dean? What are you going to do?” Henricksen shakes his head. “How are you going to protect your brother once we've strapped you down for a lethal injection? Foresight not your strong suit, Dean. Should leave the thinking to Sammy, huh? Putting yourself on the Most Wanted list isn't exactly the best way to take care of your kid, is it?”
“Don't you do that. Don't you fucking call him that.”
Henricksen raises an eyebrow.
Dean's chest hurts. “Just let me see him.”
“Begging? Really?”
“Something's wrong.”
“And how do you know that?”
“It's Sam.”
And then a police officer's coming down the hallway saying, “Henricksen? We've got a problem here,” and Dean slams his head back against the wall so hard everything grays out for a minute.
**
Sam's ten times worse than when Henricksen left him. He's cuffed with both hands on his forehead, forcing air in and out of his lungs. Laura's next to him with her hand on his shoulder.
Sam looks up and fixes him with a glare. “You said I was...getting my fucking...inhaler.”
“They didn't bring it to you?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Son of a...hold on.” He goes to the desk and hunts around until he finds it. He brings it in and starts to uncuff Sam, but apparently he's perfectly happy to use it with his wrists locked together. He sucks on it and slams it down on the table, holds his breath. A minute later, he's not sounding any better.
“Get my brother,” he says. “Please.”
Henricksen says, “What's he going to do that we can't?”
Laura says, “Don't you think this has gone on long enough? Bring his brother. What the hell harm's it going to do?”
Not forty-five seconds later Dean barrels through the door with a cop on his shoulder and flies to the chair in front of Sam before they can even push him into it. “Sammy. Sammy. Hey.” He doesn't glance down as he's handcuffed to the table.
“Hey,” Sam wheezes.
“You all right?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Fuck. Okay. Can you guys back up some? Give him some space?” He looks at the chains around his wrists. “Can I get on his side?”
“You're fine there,” Henricksen says.
Dean takes a deep breath and when he exhales, he's like a completely different person. He's calm, quiet...deliberate.
Well. That's interesting.
“Hey,” Dean says, and when Sam looks up at him, he smiles. “Hey. Just watch me and breathe with me, all right? We're fine.” He breathes in slow, short breaths. Halfway between Sam and something normal.
“This is bad,” Sam says.
“Stop, I don't want to hear it. We're not drama-queening right now. We're just breathing. Come on.” He breathes with Sam for another minute or so, then picks the inhaler up and shakes it. He presses it into Sam's hand. “Now. You're all right.”
They go through the process a few times, and each time Dean gets colder and harder and more like someone who could slaughter a bank full of people if he had the opportunity. “Breathe,” Dean says, glancing around at everyone else. “Not giving you any other fucking choice, Sam. No falling apart.”
“Not falling apart, fuck you.”
Dean grins. “There we go.” He waits for Sam to take the inhaler again, then says, “He sounds a little further from death's door, at least. He needs to be a in a room with a fucking window out of this dusty fucking place, can we get him there?”
Henricksen says, “I can get him there. You can stay in here with your lawyer.”
“Jesus, what is this?”
“It's the only way to get either of you to pay any damn attention to anything but each other,” he says. He unlocks Sam's wrists and says, “Come on, Sam.” He's gentle with him.
He brings Sam to a different interrogation room, one with a window, and chains Sam up again before he opens it. Sam leans his head against the wall and closes his eyes.
“You up to talking?” Henricksen says.
Sam shakes his head without opening his eyes.
“All right.”
Ten minutes later, Laura comes in and says she's chatted with Dean and he's back in the cell. She glances at Sam and says, “He awake?”
“Yeah,” Henricksen says. “I don't think you're getting anything out of him today, though.”
Sam cracks open his eyes, says, “Feeling a little better. We need to talk?” He coughs, heavy and wet, into his elbow.
She says, “The air's helping?”
“I just want to be with my brother.”
She nods. “We can do that. I have stuff to fact-check now that I've talked to Dean, anyway.” She looks at Henricksen. “Any reason he can't have twenty minutes?”
“Need a hospital,” Sam says, quietly.
She says, “We'll see what we can do, Sam, all right?” She looks at Henricksen. “Can we get him there?”
“It's going to take a lot of men and a lot of guns.”
“Look into it. Bring him back to the cell first.”
He hauls Sam up and down the hall. Sam's covers his mouth by his hand when they pass by a load of cops, and Henricksen considers for the first time that it might be embarrassing for a hardass criminal to breathe like that.
Dean's standing up when they round the corner, watching them with his eyes wide and his jaw set.
Henriksen lets Sam in and thinks that he should go check on those hospital arrangements. But he doesn't, right away. He turns the corner enough so he's out of sight, and he listens.
“Jesus,” Dean says. “Shit, Sam. Let's sit you down, come on.”
There's a pause, then, some shuffling around. Dean cursing quietly.
“So fucking tired,” Sam says.
“I know. Jesus, you've got to be. This sucks. This is fucking shit. I shouldn't have brought you to the hospital.”
“Would have died.”
“Yeah, well, you still might.”
Sam laughs a little. “So helpful.”
“Shut up, I'm worried.”
“I know.”
Sam starts coughing, and Dean says, “Okay, c'mere, lie down. On your side. Head here. Good. Christ, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had to be such an asshole in there.”
“'s okay.”
“Didn't want to start bawling about my fucked-up little brother in a roomful of strangers. I knew what that would do for your ego. You'd be teasing me about being the center of my fucking world for the rest of our damn lives.”
“You're so fucking annoying.”
“Yeah. Did the window help?”
“Yep.”
“Perfect.”
Sam coughs some more and Dean says, “Give it a rest, buddy. Here. That better?”
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“Handcuffs are driving me fucking crazy.”
Yeah. There's nothing strange between the two of them. Sure. Henricksen believes that about as much as he believes their crap about demons.
“Shit,” Dean says. “You think that'll work?”
“Yeah.” He clears his throat. “The breathing thing, I mean.”
“Oh.”
“Hey.”
“What? Jesus, Sam.”
“It's going to be fine. We've done this before.” There's a pause, the noise of someone shifting around. “They're going to see about getting me to a hospital. So that'll help.”
“Okay. Okay.”
There's a long pause then, nothing but the noise of Sam's breathing, then Dean says, “Shit, Sammy. I just...”
“No. Shh.”
“I'm so fucking sorry, Sam.”
“Stop, okay?”
“I'm just really fucking sorry.”
“I'm so tired, Dean. Can we do this guilt trip later?”
“We can do it fucking always, how about that?”
“I want to sleep. Just play with my hair a little.”
“Girl.”
“Feels good, though.”
They go quiet, then, and hell if Henriksen's going to stand around and listen to them sleep. Not when the one they really need for questioning sounds like he's about to drop dead in there.
He glances around the corner and gets a quick look at them-Sam with his eyes closed, head on Dean's knee, and Dean leaning back against the wall looking wrecked, beaten, and trapped.
Perfect.
He leaves for three minutes, maybe, to make a phone call. By the time he gets back, they've vanished.
Check the cells for rust next time, says a note left on the bench. And thanks for the window. xoxo, Sam.